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9780190062804

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In More than Nothing, Aaron Wright brings us to one of the great transformations of modern physics: the shift from seeing the void as pure absence to depicting the vacuum as a teeming structure of virtual particles and spacetime curvature. From the early twentieth to the early twenty-first century, physicists have developed practices, paper machinery, so to speak, to sort out why objects move, splinter, collide as they do: Feynman, Minkowski, Penrose diagrams, and other techniques fill the toolbox of abstract thought. Wright shows us how the story of the vacuum is one that captures what theoretical physicists have framed as the most fundamental entities in the universe * a natural philosophy of what for centuries on end was just the vacuum, nothing at all. It is a great adventure in thought that will interest physicists, philosophers, and a broader, scientifically-interested public.Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, History of Science and Physics, Harvard University * Over the past century, physicists have wrung deep insights by thinking about 'nothing.' In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Aaron Wright traces how physicists have sharpened a series of conceptual tools by scrutinizing the vacuum, thereby transforming fundamental ideas about space, time, and matter. * David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology * In this impressive book, Aaron Wright brings to life the work of the brilliant minds who studied the subtle concept of nothing in the twentieth century. Even those familiar with physicists like Dirac and Feynman will find new insights from this carefully researched book. More than Nothing is a marvel to read, and a rare example of a history of science book that never ceases to surprise. * Dan Kennefick, Professor of Physics, University of Arkansas *

"""In More than Nothing, Aaron Wright brings us to one of the great transformations of modern physics: the shift from seeing the void as pure absence to depicting the vacuum as a teeming structure of virtual particles and spacetime curvature. From the early twentieth to the early twenty-first century, physicists have developed practices, paper machinery, so to speak, to sort out why objects move, splinter, collide as they do: Feynman, Minkowski, Penrose diagrams, and other techniques fill the toolbox of abstract thought. Wright shows us how the story of the vacuum is one that captures what theoretical physicists have framed as the most fundamental entities in the universe--a natural philosophy of what for centuries on end was just the vacuum, nothing at all. It is a great adventure in thought that will interest physicists, philosophers, and a broader, scientifically-interested public."" --Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, History of Science and Physics, Harvard University ""Over the past century, physicists have wrung deep insights by thinking about 'nothing.' In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Aaron Wright traces how physicists have sharpened a series of conceptual tools by scrutinizing the vacuum, thereby transforming fundamental ideas about space, time, and matter."" --David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ""In this impressive book, Aaron Wright brings to life the work of the brilliant minds who studied the subtle concept of nothing in the twentieth century. Even those familiar with physicists like Dirac and Feynman will find new insights from this carefully researched book. More than Nothing is a marvel to read, and a rare example of a history of science book that never ceases to surprise."" --Dan Kennefick, Professor of Physics, University of Arkansas"

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Aaron Sidney Wright, PhD, is Assistant Professor of History at Dalhousie University and the University of King's College in Kjipuktuk, Mi'kma'ki (Halifax, Nova Scotia). He has held postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of History of Science at Harvard University and in the Suppes Center for History and Philosophy of Science at Stanford University.

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